problems with TRUNC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I seem to be having trouble with the TRUNC formula!

In the same worksheet i have used it many times but some seem to give
the incorrect answer...but all the settings are the same as the one
that works!

the formula is =TRUNC(W152/60)

where in this case W152 is 180.

in some of the cells the result of =TRUNC(180/60) = 3

in the ones which are not working the result is 2.9999999999999

Any ideas? all the formulas and cell settings are identical!


--
Steven_Archer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven_Archer's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=29025
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=487571

What you are seeing is simple round-off eror. The reason that different
things are displayed is probably due to formatting differences.
--
Gary's Student


"Steven_Archer" wrote:


problems with TRUNC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I seem to be having trouble with the TRUNC formula!

In the same worksheet i have used it many times but some seem to give
the incorrect answer...but all the settings are the same as the one
that works!

the formula is =TRUNC(W152/60)

where in this case W152 is 180.

in some of the cells the result of =TRUNC(180/60) = 3

in the ones which are not working the result is 2.9999999999999

Any ideas? all the formulas and cell settings are identical!


--
Steven_Archer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven_Archer's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=29025
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=487571

If you only want to see an integer, then use the INT() function.
--
Gary''s Student


"Steven_Archer" wrote:


problems with TRUNC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I seem to be having trouble with the TRUNC formula!

In the same worksheet i have used it many times but some seem to give
the incorrect answer...but all the settings are the same as the one
that works!

the formula is =TRUNC(W152/60)

where in this case W152 is 180.

in some of the cells the result of =TRUNC(180/60) = 3

in the ones which are not working the result is 2.9999999999999

Any ideas? all the formulas and cell settings are identical!


--
Steven_Archer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven_Archer's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=29025
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=487571

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.
this doesnt seem to have solved it


The problem is i think that the 180 figure represent minutes so what i
need to do is devide this by 60 to give me the number of full hours (in
this case 3).

What both INT and TRUNC are doing is rounding the 2.999999 down to 2 -
although i cant understand why it is taking 180/60 to be 2.99999
instead of 3!


Steven


--
Steven_Archer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven_Archer's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=29025
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=487571

Steven_Archer wrote:
the formula is =TRUNC(W152/60)
where in this case W152 is 180.
in some of the cells the result of =TRUNC(180/60) = 3
in the ones which are not working the result is 2.9999999999999
Any ideas? all the formulas and cell settings are identical!

I suspect what you mean to say is: W152 __appears__ to be
180. And I suspect you mean to say: some TRUNC(Wxxx/60)
results are 3, while some other TRUNC(Wxxx/60) results are 2.99...,
where "Wxxx" represents different cells.

I presume that if you wrote literally =TRUNC(180/60), the results
is 3 in every cell. Right?

The point is: what __appears__ to be 180 in a cell is probably
not exactly 180. If you format the Wxxx cells a Number with
14 digits of precision, this might prove the theory.

The "problem" is that real numbers generally cannot be stored
exactly as they appear. This leads to annoying numerical
"errors" of this sort. This is not an Excel problem. It is simply
an anomaly of how (binary) computers represent real numbers
internally.

The "solution" is either to live with the anomaly or to work around
it. The different results for "180" in different cells might actually
be the answer you need. Alternatively, you could set the option
Tools Options Calculation Precision As Displayed.
However, that can have unintended results if you are not careful
with cell formats throughout the spreadsheet. Alternatively, you
could use ROUND() in judicious places instead of relying on cell
formatting to do the rounding for you.

There is a parallel discussion in
microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions.

Please do not separately post the same question in multiple newsgroups.

Jerry

Steven_Archer wrote:

problems with TRUNC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I seem to be having trouble with the TRUNC formula!

In the same worksheet i have used it many times but some seem to give
the incorrect answer...but all the settings are the same as the one
that works!

the formula is =TRUNC(W152/60)

where in this case W152 is 180.

in some of the cells the result of =TRUNC(180/60) = 3

in the ones which are not working the result is 2.9999999999999

Any ideas? all the formulas and cell settings are identical!